Bob Dylan: The 1966 Live Recordings - Sony 36-CD box-set - November 11th 2016

I just listened to Belfast earlier this evening, and instantly recognised "I Don't Believe You" from Biograph.

 

Wow. It's odd that Heylin would point it out so clearly. Good times!

 

Why, with thirty sound-board quality discs at my disposal, have I spent my first day with "the box" listening only to the audience tapes? Well, I think they recapture (for me) some of the thrill of the scratchy, wobbly, cracking bootleg LPs that I adored as a teenager. That really was a magical, mystical time. Also, hearing some close-up audience reaction gives a flavour of what it must've been like to be hearing these songs for the first time, pristine and unsullied. And imagining the wild-haired young Man with the world at his feet, strumming and blowing and chanting like a prophet right there in front of you. Imagine that.

 

How are the incomplete songs handled? Abrupt cuts or fades? Pauses?

I love the garbled sound of a reel running out of tape.

 

Ha ha...nice one Well here I go, Paris ...I'm going in

 

Mine doesn't like Dylan...maybe she needs a hip replacement

 

Eat the Document and No Direction Home versions IDs via listening and comparing (a lot of this already known)

ETD Tell Me Momma - Liverpool

ETD I don't believe you - Cardiff

ETD Baby Follow you down - Liverpool

ETD Tom Thumbs - Belfast

ETD One Too Many Mornings - Belfast

ETD Thin Man - Newcastle > Glasgow ('you have many contacts') > Cardiff > Edinburgh
~complete Newcastle Thin Man is Epic

ETD LARS - Belfast

NDH Tom Thumbs - Belfast > Newcastle

NDH Leopard Skin - Dublin

NDH One Too Many Mornings - audio from both Cardiff and Liverpool. Liverpool is cut at beginning so they spliced in the start of Cardiff to cover it up.

NDH LARS - Cardiff...

Some other notes:
Dublin - I don't Believe You is played at a slower pace for only time on tour

Belfast
-Garth Hudson's best show

-right before One Too Many Mornings was definitely tape switch time, as the tape cuts into the beginning of the song on the following shows:
Belfast
Bristol (cuts in during middle of first verse)
Liverpool
Leichester
Glasgow (listed as incomplete but actually quite complete, just the first few seconds missing. )
Newcastle
~yes, it is tape gargle cut in. Not fade in.

not close to being all the way through and just so much great stuff everywhere.

 

Please Sony , a dvd of ALL the concert clips from 1966.

 

BTW - this is NOT a limited edition .....they will print more up as per demand for them...

Dylan's set was essentially the same every single night of the 1966 tour, so only the most devoted Dylan nuts will listen to all 36 CDs on the box set. The Dylan source points to Cardiff and Leicester as two of the best, while Alderson feels that Dublin and Liverpool are the standouts. Unlike other recent archival Dylan packages, this one is not a limited set. Early sales have been extremely strong. (Amazon UK sold out of their entire 1,000 box allotment in a single day.) "We'll make more of them if the marketplace demands them," says the source. "They won't be available digitally. It makes it very confusing if you go to Bob's iTunes and see the same show 35 times. But the Royal Albert Hall show will become available digitally and every other way."

 

The sound quality on the 1966 recordings varies from night to night, but is largely excellent. Credit Alderson, who mixed the house feed while operating a Nagra reel-to-reel recorder every night. "I was on a cocktail of drugs back then that included LSD, amphetamines and alcohol," he says today. "So I don't quite remember how I did it."

Some interesting info on the recording -etc

Inside Bob Dylan's Massive New 36-Album 1966 Live Box Set »

 

You sure? That would mean that it was the same as the first half half of the NDH clip...

 

Got the Box,
it's surprisingly smaller than I thought

Had a quick listen and thought "Wow,
I gotta go now!"

 

Yes, it is used in both...the side view clip we've all watched a thousand times over the years but never knew the location.

 

I, for one, would love it if Dylan's current touring returned to this format: First Set: solo acoustic; Second Set: with a band

 

Fantastic -- enjoy the weekend now, and thanks for all of your continuing coverage of this momentous event in music history.

 

So, basically just about all of them.

 

I noticed that Amazon USA says "Usually ships within 1 to 2 months"...were sales much greater than expected?

 

Whew! This a major feat. It's utterly amazing how colorful that era was and how great these shows are. I reckon I've only been keenly aware of them for 18 years. Many of you much longer.

Now it's all here in cube that fits in your mailbox.

 

There appears to be no attempt to remove the tape squeals at the beginnings of songs or garbled tape at the ends of songs where they occur. No fades that I've heard yet but I'm only 4 discs in, listening in chronological order rather than disc sequence.

 

I'm trying to formulate which electric sets are the best...it is turning into a futile attempt, all so damn good.

Electric - Belfast, Cardiff, Sheffield, Newcastle, Paris and 5/26, seem to have the most "oh my god" moments...so yeah, all of them.

hit up that Sheffield Thin Man

 

Excellent. I like that sound.

Plus it's a way to know the reel actually ran out and Sony wasn't being greedy with material. Ha

 

I was just carrying the box to my music room and dropped it. Fortunately, I caught the corner on my bare foot and lowered it to the floor. I'll be seeing my orthopedic surgeon on Monday if I can walk, but the box is not dinged. Life is good.

My advice is to carry it with two hands, and balance your wine glass on your head.

 

Listened to the Feb 5th White Plains disc tonight (I'm also proceeding chronologically here, one show at a time), an audience tape I've never heard before, AFAIK. Definitely not great audio quality, with moderate distortion -- did tapers back then think it was better to stand next to the P.A. speakers? -- but really not all that bad for 1966.

The acoustic set sounds just a little rushed to me, especially Freeze Out/Visions of Johanna, and the drums and keyboards are virtually inaudible on the two electric numbers included here. Robbie's guitar fills and lead parts already seem locked into place on Tell Me Momma, and he apparently didn't vary them too much for the rest of the tour. This loose, almost sloppy performance of the song -- earliest known recording of it, right? -- makes you really appreciate the much tighter versions from later in the world tour.

I do like the fake, handwritten/old-typewriter tape box labels -- tape speed for this one is listed as 3 3/4 ips, indicating that a reel to reel recorder was used, and not a cassette. Is there a technical way to determine the original tape speed after something's been copied over and over again? (The Pittsburgh tape is listed at 7 1/2 ips, but the other audience tapes are all 3 3/4.) Or is that just Geoff Gans and the Sony gang having a little fun? Awww, all these little details...why do I even care?

 

Excellent capsule review - hope you'll keep them coming like this as you make your way through the discs...